


Golden Rules

by Lyssandra_Med



Series: One-Shot [32]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Animagus Hermione Granger, Bellamione Cult War, Dark Hermione Granger, Discord: Bellamione Cult, F/F, Team Furbae
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-31 21:37:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21152594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyssandra_Med/pseuds/Lyssandra_Med
Summary: She was safe; just as much as she could ever be.She had rules; the only two that would ever matter.Or; Hermione Granger didn't follow rules because they were right, but for a very different reason.





	Golden Rules

Rules.

Strict guidelines to adhere to, regulations and governing contracts, methods by which to live.

She hated them.

She instinctively understood that their existence (and thus importance) to her life weren’t what someone polite would describe as _ normal. _

_ She _ wasn’t normal.

If the lack of certain thoughts wasn’t enough to convince her of that fact, then the stern looks and apprehensive smiles she engendered certainly were. The whispers and the eyes that said _ ‘Something is wrong about her,’ _ as politely as they could.

Something about lacking the morals of her peers, lacking their foresight, the ability to determine that one action (however beneficial to herself) was _ wrong, _ whereas another (however detrimental to herself) was _ right. _ The local library helped elucidate her to the name for her condition, or at least what she believed to be its name. It was a label that her doctors and parents had always steadfastly refused to give her, as though it was better she not understand herself.

No matter; in the end the application of a label wasn’t that useful to her, it did nothing but state the obvious, and she had no use for that at all. What she did have a use for were rules instead of _ right _ or _ wrong, _ and in the end it worked (more or less.)

Minus all the toes she still managed to step on whenever the rules were unwritten, or couldn’t be rigidly applied.

And then she found out she was a witch.

\---

Her first year was more of a culture shock than anything else.

Diving off head first into uncharted territory, learning and absorbing all the knowledge that she could in as short a time frame as physically possible. Her school work was a breeze, the only rule that really applied was no cheating, that she do her own work (a rule that her sudden hangerons had more than a little trouble understanding.)

She _ thrived _ in the new setting; why in the world would she ever need to cheat when all the information for every question and every test was _ right there _in the library? And even better, all the work and all the learning fit neatly into her little slice of rules.

_ Twist your wand just _ ** _this_ ** _ way when casting. _

_ Ground the horn down to just _ ** _this_ ** _ consistency. _

_ Give the cauldron just _ ** _this_ ** _ many turns exactly. _

Simple, easy to follow along with, and the gateway towards a wider breadth of information.

As days passed off into weeks she managed to avoid becoming a pariah (with her head and hand always down) or an outcast (managing to have _ just _ enough conversations to not come across as a loner, as she had in primary education.)

Soon enough she was being sought out for tough questions, or heavy theory; all her fellow classmates convinced she had every book memorized.

She didn’t, but it never hurt to just let them all think that.

But unfortunately there were… ** _other_ ** side effects and consequences of her uniqueness.

The duo of hangerons were a bother, that much was for sure, and one that eventually ground against her nerves for long enough to ignite the sleeping wrath of her temper.

The duo flew back as she herself flew into a rage, their eyes wide and lips twisted into an _ ‘O’ _ of surprise.

Her Head of House was lenient when she assigned her a detention for that stunt, understanding and willing to compromise in the face of her heretofore excellent scholastic record. It was, however, an experience that she decidedly hadn’t enjoyed; one hour spent helping the near geriatric Professor to grade (adherent to specific guidelines of course) a mind-numbingly pedantic essay on the uses for Transfiguration.

Merlin; her classmates had less brains than a pack of zombies.

Beyond dealing with that incident there was very little to annoy or perturb her, beyond some schoolyard racism classed up as blood-purism, or some such nonsense. The teasing she endured was pointless at best; she couldn’t change who she was, and so resolved to silently deal with it. 

Eventually they would grow bored and move along, (if they were anything like the bullies at her prior school, at least.)

And so the year continued, easy and filled with learning, only interrupted near the end when the hangerons questioned her repeatedly about theories and a dog; a plant and some sort of riddle.

And then someone died.

She wasn’t that perturbed (more annoyed than anything, whatever else he may have been, the Professor had at least shown some aptitude for teaching.)

Just another oddity to add to her ever growing list.

\---

Second year was much more competent and useful than her first, at least until midway through her courses.

Both her hangerons had returned in full force, each one praising her for the help that she had given them the prior year. Help? She had barely answered a few of their questions (questions that could have been easily answered if they had only visited the Library), and yet they acted as if she had accompanied them both on their little adventure to the forbidden corridor.

Neither boy seemed to have been left upset by her outburst the year before, and instead had come to see it as some singular event, rather than a constantly twitching end that they were slowly driving her towards.

Unfortunately the desire she had built up to remain free and clear of detention (and bad marks) had robbed her of the ability to do something like that again; leaving her no clear choice other than to grin and bear their constant accompaniment. She grinned, bore their words, and went about her business. If they sought to elevate her status within their gaze, then fine, so long as it didn’t interrupt her desires they could hang for all she cared.

At least until the snake started maiming people.

Or a more accurate depiction would have been _ ‘Stuffing someone fully into a locked up state from which they needed neither food nor drink, but could not move a single muscle, locked inside their minds with a body that was awake and would never tire.’ _

And unfortunately she ended up becoming one of these useless victims.

The attack had occurred when she was out after supper one night, a night just like any other at all, and in her haste to reach the Library she instead ran into Ghost, and through it the eyes of whatever had taken to stalking the Castle’s corridors.

It was a torture, is what it was, her hand held out and eyes wide open, body unable to move or sleep, unable to do anything at all other than lay there in horrid stillness to think.

Even her hearing was stolen from her, the magic in the eyes having frozen every bone within her body.

Hell, through and through, and one that managed to leave her sorely broken when a drought was finally poured down her throat.

She resolved then and there (while still coughing out dust that had accumulated in her throat) that she would never, ever, be that helpless again.

\---

Her third year kicked off alright, if by alright she meant receiving a shiny object that managed to violate all the laws of time while also breaking every rule of physics that she had ever known.

She did.

And it was.

The Library fell to pieces, bit by bit, as she worked her way through each and every text that was required for her classes.

For every year.

Except Divination. (A practice so far beneath her that mounds of textbooks all mysteriously went missing.)

The Duo tried as valiantly as ever to break their way beneath her armor, worm underneath all of her defenses, but she still managed to rebuff them as gently as she could. She gave them hints, dropped notes on which texts they should be studying, helped them find and correct any grammatical errors strewn throughout their work.

Her efforts were all small and with the Turner strung about her neck, she had no excuse for impatience or annoyance.

In between helping them she finished cleaning out every book that she would be required to read (if she could attend _ every _ class currently available), and soon after that it became a personal race to see how quickly she could burn her way through everything else.

_ ‘Advanced Water Charms’, ‘Pearls Out of Potions: An Alchemist’s Guide’, ‘Quidditch: For you and Me’, _ she read everything and anything that she could get her hands on, a voracious appetite for knowledge having been unlocked and stoked to burning. Each day passed her by in three, four, sometimes even eight loops, all safe and secure enough to blitz behind shelves or under tables to avoid commingling with herself.

It was, so far as she could understand it, somewhat of an unsustainable venture. Eventually she would need to slow or halt her pace entirely, if only to avoid aging five years in the span of eight months.

She didn’t want anyone asking any questions after all; she had the Turner for the remainder of the year and knew exactly how best to use it to her benefit.

The accretion of more knowledge. Obviously. Whatever else would it have been?

Among the spells she mastered was the Patronus charm, a handy little bit of magic now that there were soul-sucking creatures flying about the campus, all on the lookout for some deranged murderer.

The creature that left her wand was larger than what she had expected, its legs spanning outwards until it was the size of a dinner plate; all thin and spindly and covered from tip to tip in spikes and barbs like armor made to hurt. Nothing could touch the magnificent spider, nothing could break its armor, and if it was real, she had no doubt that it would be venomous to the highest degree.

But of course the fact that she had her own defenses wasn’t enough to negate the constant danger that the Duo seemed to find themselves sliding towards, and by the time the end of the year had rolled around she had somehow been roped into dashing along through time to save a Mad-man from death.

Or at least she had believed him mad, at least she had until the beginning of the loop; when a rat turned out to be a Rat, and her worldview shifted sideways.

She filed that away for future reference; escaping a situation as an animal was certainly an interesting method to get out of danger.

\---

Her fourth year ended up as a stop gap towards greater things, she supposed.

Finding the location (and method of entry) to the Room of Requirement might have been the single greatest thing to happen to her since she’d first arrived; finally finding somewhere to practice potions and poisons that otherwise would have led to steely eyed Professor’s breathing down her neck and questioning, _ ‘Why, Ms. Granger, do you ever need to know _ ** _that_ ** _ ?” _

The grinding sound of stone, some moments of confusion, and then the single greatest room in the Castle opened its door to her.

Expansive, reactive, able to conjure (or summon, she wasn’t quite sure on the specifics yet) anything at all, at the exact moment she needed it. 

_ Wonderful. _

Soon enough the space had become a second home (and the Room of Hidden Things as well,) the perfect spot to keep a particular potion bubbling for an extended period of time, all without any chance of someone else stumbling upon it.

But with this unexpected boon there also came a bust; particularly the bust of one blonde headed Veela who seemed determined to stick them both chest to chest, lip to lip.

Not that Hermione was complaining (aloud, anyways), she had learned the hard way that most people didn’t appreciate when she bragged or put them off. Soon enough the Veela had her pressed back into a mimicry of her own room, warm skin beneath her hands and cold breath passing over the curve of her throat.

Unfortunately the sheer bliss of the experience wasn’t enough to keep things going once she made no move to return the French witch’s affections. Emotionally, at least. Physically she went all in, ready to absorb the beauty and the feel of it all; sharp nails breaking tanned skin and a newfound delight for specific (controlled pain), a lessening of her defenses in the most controlled manner that she knew how.

And all the while she was able to rule the interaction.

Until, that is, she wasn’t.

Boom.

Bust.

Fire sending smoke up high in the air, dragons and winged things trapped close beneath the glass of a jar at the behest of her Black haired ‘Friend’, an exercise in damage mitigation for her.

The woman had been printing some rather sensational lies after all, and who could blame Hermione for going on the offensive when she found out how all that information was gathered. All those honeyed words would have poisoned public sentiment towards her disposition and nature; and all before she’d even managed to leave school.

Defenses must be maintained after all.

And she had _ so _ very much wanted to know how it felt to be the spider with a pretty fly caught between its web; a taste of control and managed aggression that all her rules failed to stop.

Unfortunately her fourth year was also marred by the return of the Dark Lord, the single greatest threat that the Wizarding World had ever seen (in England, at the least, Hermione had read of some rather unsavory individuals from other corners of the globe,) ready to spread mayhem and terror all across the land. Hogwarts wasn’t enough anymore, she needed something more, something else to keep her safe. If anything the past four years had proven well enough that the schools defenses were sorely lacking, specifically when they catered to the rather eccentric whims of the Headmaster and the soon to be fulfilled death-wish of the Boy.

So she looked elsewhere.

\---

Conveniently enough, her constant association with the Duo ended up landing her in the single best spot to begin her plan.

12 Grimmauld Place; an ancient and decrepit town home that had (once, when dinosaurs still roamed) seen better days. As it was now, the space was occupied solely by clutter, cobwebs, and detritus beyond belief.

And a half mad Animagus still running from the Law.

Perfect company, sanity notwithstanding.

She couldn’t argue with the reasoning however; she would remain safe and secure under the watch of the Order, while otherwise being free to spend her time as she pleased, safe and far away from the Muggle world where something could track her, or find her unawares (not that _ she _ needed the protection, as having a Turner third year had done wonders towards removing her Trace.) It did still irk her somewhat that her request for protection of her family was denied with the excuse of a Muggle home being far too hard to secure effectively.

Bollocks.

She could barely stomach it when they fed her that lie; her family’s home would be just as easy to secure as this location, if they bothered to try that is. As it was though, she was left on her own to determine the best way to keep her parents safe (the only two people in the world that she would extend that courtesy to), and with enough time and effort she came about a plan.

Three days of sleepless nights, six hours of intense meditation, one afternoon spent all alone with knives dripping blood all around her. Her parents would never know of the protections, neither would the so called Order, the deed was done and her scars were healed in patterns and whirls across her skin; never to fade, never to buckle, tied directly into her life itself. And she had no intentions of dying any time soon (or ever, if she could swing it.)

And with the sting still on her mind she left them to be, joining instead with the man she had inadvertently saved back in her third year, an inkling in her mind of what she might come across in his (relatively) ancient home.

Books.

_ Hundreds of them. _

All tomes and grimoires she’d never seen before, never heard of, never even dreamt that they could have existed. Books so old and aged that they seemed at first glance to be more moth-rot than paper, books enough that she could almost never run out of them.

She gave it her best effort though, no matter her wonderment at the crushing bulk of them all. The first part of the task was in sending out the small (large) spider that she had acquired (stolen) from the back of a decrepit Familiar Shop in Diagon; the windows all blown out and howling cats intermingled with shelves topped by owls that looked too old to ever leave their perches. In that back of that store, that pit of animal despair, she had found one of the few things that would ever make her break her rules.

Rule; _ No stealing. _

A spider very much like her ethereal Patronus had crawled up onto her outstretched hand with nary a hint of displeasure or hesitation, hitching a ride from the horrid store beneath the covering veil of her curls and frizz.

It was a good decision, in the long run.

And even now it was serving her well; the spider running along ahead of her fingers to tap and test the spines and pages for curses laid down long ago, all just waiting for an errant hand to touch and activate them.

Luckily the group of adults that ran the Order had deemed her responsible enough to take on the work herself, a precious number of hours where she was left alone with Dark Magic’s and tomes of even more questionable content. She _ was _ supposed to simply identify them and determine which were meant for destruction (heresy, to the bookworm), but with a swiftness to her fingers she instead transferred their contents over to a rather small and unassuming notebook. The spells required to make the move were intense for an adult; for her they were nearly too easy after all the extra time spent practicing and using her newfound aptitude for anything and everything.

The ink went in, the cover spelled small, and just like that she had a portable copy of everything in the Black Library all to herself, all kept within the notebook that looked to anyone not of her blood like a simple journal or diary.

Perfect.

\---

The beginning of her Fifth year brought with it a change as cold as the news that the Dark Lord wasn’t dead, wasn’t sitting in a grave somewhere with nothing to do and no one to call to him.

The Toad.

The Hateful Bitch.

_ She-Who-Would-Fuck-It-All-Up. _

Night, after night, after night; all for the crime of being _ too _ smart, for being too far ahead of her classmates and Professor.

Repeatedly scribbling lines into a burning silver scar, _ ‘I will not outshine my peers,’ _ a mockery of her ability and those who thought themselves her _ peers. _

All because she wasn’t one of _ them. _

Because she managed to do _ better _ than them, with no signs as to indicate _ why. _

The first inclination she had was to use a hex which would (over the excruciatingly long period of thirty-six hours,) rot away the Toad’s flesh until she looked just as horrid on the outside as Hermione knew she was on the inside. Black Hair (Harry, as she’d taken to calling him once he’d learned of another famous Black having escaped,) managed to still her hand when she brought the hex up; but only just. 

In the end she decided to go with a little bit of old-fashioned Muggle ingenuity instead.

Her detention block was scheduled directly after Harry left from getting his own inscription, she was next in line and nervous with excited anticipation. She downed two blood replenishing potions, and a Muggle medicine meant to thin blood; impair clotting.

One cut-

And that was all it took. 

The blood leaked off her knuckles in steaming lines that the Quill would never be able to drink up, quickly, gushing, thin streams of chaos blanketing her parchment and the desk beneath it. The Toad balked immediately once she caught sight of the mess that Hermione had become, her hurried mending spell unable to deal with her physiology having been directly affected.

_ ‘Shoo!’ _ The Toad swept her out of the room with a glare and stern warnings to deal with it herself, some punishment or other for not having the mind to _ deal _ with her healing spell.

Off she went.

Straight to the Infirmary. _ Did the woman _ ** _really_ ** _ think she would listen? _

Hermione fell unconscious just three steps into the room, her right foot forward and face smacking down against the ground with a meaty thud and clanking grace just as noisily as she could make it. A broken nose, massive black eyes, and ten minutes spent with Pomfrey and _ Episkey, _ all to watch the Toad be trotted off down the halls with red robed men on either side, her own grin eerily twitching as she watched.

Did _ she _ want to press charges? Oh heavens no; she had only been serving a well-earned detention, surely that was all.

But everyone else? All thirty-six of them? All the students who had been able to show off the silvered lines that she had been painstakingly healing for nearly an entire month prior?

Well, they all just wanted to ensure that justice was served.

It was. Gleefully, and from eyes that watched the blood trails with a slowing increasing heartbeat.

That was the end of that mess, the Toad’s now leaderless class passed off to a substitute brought over from Durmstrang with an accent so thick she could almost convince herself that he was making words up whole cloth. All the remainder of her classes (which to this point had been dreadfully normal as well,) continued on as if nothing had happened, as if no one had come or gone, all well and right with the world.

Until just before the school year ended, that was.

(Like always, as if Harry had a magnet that slowly grew in strength over the year until finally making a break for it.)

On a night much like any other she was leaving the Room of Requirement from a practice session that had her blood boiling and heart rate pumping with exertion, fingers slick with sweat and body sore from movement. The Duo managed to corner her on the second stairwell down, an attack, they said, somewhere deep within the Ministry. Something to do with the convict that they had already saved once before.

She knew that it was unlikely, that man knew just exactly where he was supposed to stay, she _ knew _ it was likely to be a trap.

They didn’t listen.

When did they ever?

And soon enough she was up off of solid ground and flying straight through the chilled air on a beast she couldn’t even see while her stomach lurched upwards through her throat and she calculated the chances of success within her head.

Zero, the more she thought about it.

And of course she was proven right when they arrived at the Ministry, the ten masked and robed intruders making that observation glaringly obvious like a neon colored sign screaming _ ‘Kill Me, I’m Dumb.’ _ Soon enough their wands were all out, voices all loud, her mind screaming _ ‘RUN!’ _

She didn’t.

At least, she didn’t run _ away. _

_ ‘I’m not helpless,’ _ she whispered in the back of her mind, _ ‘I’m _ ** _not_ ** _ .’ _

In a moment of confusion she slinked off down a corridor, body shifting and stature changing until no one was around to see the spider jumping rack to rack. She hid back behind the fighters after running herself up high, content to wait and watch to see exactly how bad it all turned out.

Terribly bad, it turned out.

Harry managed to drop the ball on this one (quite literally as a matter of fact), and though she fought valiantly to keep up with his mad dash, a spider was nowhere near fast enough to keep up with their frenzied pace. Eight legs were useful in some cases, but hurrying up after fleeing teenagers and maddened killers was definitely beyond her.

She pulled back slightly to change within a row of corridors, standing tall between the shattered remnants of who knew how many prophecies-

And a wand.

At her neck.

The man never saw what it was that killed him, Hermione’s magic moving far faster than the eyes could comprehend, his body shot backwards with a spike of summoned ice that left him laying still to empty atop the broken shards of glass. Unfortunately in her gusto she had attracted the notice of another killer, the sound far too loud to hide away or dissipate in time.

And then the hunt was on.

With grinning face she flew herself off in a rough tumble of gray smoke and ashes (much like the same spell that her pursuers were using, but different enough for her to guess that they had arrived there by different means), flying and twisting through corridors and around corners, her magic fully on display rather than hidden where she usually kept it.

_ The rush! _

Showing off had never been one of her vices, but as she flew around that destroyed room and dodged spellwork very similar to her own, she could hardly keep her adrenaline and excitement from spilling into the mix. Her heart rate spike, blood rushed, her shroud of smoke falling away to drop her through the air with just enough time to spare a green spell or two that she had practiced (but never on a living human being), watching the light leave her wand tip at the same moment that it left her attackers as well.

It was lovely beyond all hope of description, a rising wave of power and heady blood that flushed her neck and cheeks with fire and madness.

When she touched her feet to ground they were more prepared, the group moving to capture her instead of kill, wand aimed to hit and minds focused on her. She twisted and dodged as best she could, weaving and sliding beneath their spells while her own (wordlessly,) left hers; flashes of green and purple, red and yellow, spinning off into the throng.

That last bit was a mistake though; too preoccupied with her own handiwork she missed a cast at her side, body pressing backwards as a purple streak of lightning glanced across her left shoulder in a hit that had skin tearing from bone, delicate muscles beneath it clenching with pain and destruction. 

_ Rage _ poured out through her when her nerves finally caught up to what happened, _ ‘How _ ** _dare_ ** _ he,’ _ and with little in the way of hesitation she unleashed a _ Crucio _ where an _ Avada _would have been more appropriate.

But watching the man writhe and scream beneath the laser focused onslaught of her spell was well worth the chains that wrapped themselves around her legs, well worth the stinging pain of being disarmed (at least a few broken fingers on that one, she was sure of it), all to watch him turn from screaming terror to babbling insanity and nonsense.

It was worth every drop of blood that flew from her mouth when a Death Eater moved in to shut her up.

\---

She knew instinctively that her best bet was to plead and beg for His mercy; to grovel at their feet and hope that by the time all was said and done, she’d still be in one piece.

Her wand was gone (snapped through by a witch with black hair and equally dangerous eyes, familiar by distinction if nothing else,) and now she sat with hands bound behind her in iron chains unbreakable by any current means. She was skilled with wandless magic, but there was nowhere near enough play in her bonds to allow her any give or movement to cast.

She was defenseless, lost and forlorn in a position she had sworn to never be in.

The witch that had snapped her wand took a place near her left, long hair rippling down her sides and back in contrasting whirls of ink and honey brown, the latter still deep enough to be confused for the former, except for a bit of wild streaking gray. A beautiful combination, if Hermione said so herself, all helped along to be unnerving and deathly exciting by the smirk on her bloodred lips.

Her eyes though, it was her eyes that drew Hermione into staring between that darkness. They were the eyes of a predator, the same glint of steel and flash of heat that she saw when looking into her own. The woman continued to stand there as Hermione waited for _ something _ to happen, all hooded eyes and limbs wrapped around herself, one hand playing with a silver wedding band that she ran across her knuckles.

“Mudblood,” hissed the Dark Lord when he came upon them, seeming to float above the ground as he did so, “Are you aware of who _ I _ am? Of the might that stands before you?”

She nodded slowly, replied yes, said the knew exactly who he was and what he had done; what he would likely do.

He laughed at her when she finished speaking, something high and nasally that sounded wrong in all manner of horrible ways. Her head cocked off to the side, her eyes narrowed, wondering what exactly he found so hilarious about the situation. Trying to understand just what he found so funny about her guessing at her fate.

“I’ll make you an offer,” he leaned in to nail her down with red eyes filled with malice, “One that I’ve only extended once before and was ignored at that time. I do so hope that you’ll make the wiser choice. I’m granting you this due to the bodies I found laying at your feet; Dolohov, the Lestrange twins, you even managed to nick dear Bella. So, Mudblood, since you’re so obviously more accomplished than the simpletons on that raid,” his eyes went wide as he glared at those within the room, “How would you like proper training? Proper lessens? More than that school could ever teach you. What say you Bellatrix,” he turned and glided closer to the raven haired woman, “Would you train her up? Raise her above the filth of birth?”

The woman’s gaze dropped to meet Hermione’s as they digested his words, her own mind on one thing and one thing only; _ live. _

“Yes,” they echoed at the same moment, their voices and words complementing the other. Lestrange, or Black rather, dropped her hand and opened her palm to show the wedding band she had been toying with. In seconds the metal began to glow and brighten, molten and spitting, slowly evaporating to nothing within her palm.

Hermione bowed low, extended her arm, and nearly bit through her lip when the pain began.

\---

“Where’d you learn fighting like that,” Bellatrix asked her when they were finally alone, her head tilted to the side and feet walking her in circles around Hermione’s still kneeling form.

Hermione stared open-mouthed at her arm when her back began to straighten, cold fingers dragging over the still burning mark - _ His symbol of protection _ \- in a bid to shift away the pain, ready to reply when-

-Bellatrix’s hand in her hair was an unexpected move, the witch dropping down to a crouch that brought them eye to eye, hand pulling backwards until Hermione’s neck was bared.

She hadn’t been fast enough.

Lesson learned.

“The Black Library,” she gasped out across the sudden sting of pain (and the blinding lance of pleasure that struck right through her core), “Sirius let me go through all the books to separate out the Dark ones. I copied them all instead, I’ve been training ever since.”

Bellatrix released the hold she had in her hair, (something within Hermione keening with the loss,) her body leaning backwards while something dark passed beneath her eyes.

“I’ve two rules,” she whispered, a portion of Hermione perking to attention at the words, “Rule one is you listen to our Lord and follow His words, no matter what. Rule two, you follow mine after his. Understood?”

Hermione swiped a tongue across her lips, swallowing against the desert her mouth had become in the same instance that her own brand of inner madness peeked out to stretch her lips into a sharpened grin, “Nothing else?”

“Nothing else.”

The bare friction of jeaned thighs wasn’t enough to do anything at all in the face of the rapidly growing heat between her legs, but still… _ No rules. _

\---

The Black Library (the true version, not the festering hulk of rot that had been brought over to occupy the shelves in Grimmauld,) was a true repository of knowledge.

When Hermione made it quite clear to Bellatrix that she had already mastered everything that Hogwarts could ever teach her, they absconded from the Manor that she had been brought to (her former bully watching her with curious eyes as she left), and entered instead into the decrepit halls of Black Manor. 

The home itself was much the same as Grimmauld; old, broken down, nary a single living thing in sight.

But it did have books.

_ Thousands upon thousands of them. _

All in various stages of disuse and disrepair, but not a one so far out of sorts that she couldn’t manage a way to salvage them.

She read for days on end while the Black witch perched beside her to point out hints or tricks, bits of things she would have otherwise missed, the best tome for the right job. 

Beyond that she continued to practice everything from curses to counters, mastering each and their variants before turning to explain her own little twists on magic, her living smoke and the movements that brought it to life. The older witch graded everything she did and said until she managed to replace the wanton sneer with a smile ringed in red, twisted pleasure and burning glee bursting forth from her coal-black eyes.

She wasn’t sure how but at some point a knee ended up wedged against her crotch, body limp but strung up by lightning, the Elder teaching the Younger, fingers caught in hair and fervent bites passing between their lips.

She was Mud, reminded of that fact all the time, yet she was Mud Arisen to a post beside the hand of Black Death himself.

And she couldn’t be happier.

\---

When they eventually returned to the Castle grounds it was late at night and nearly an entire year later. Her wand had been replaced long ago with a lovely new one, all black and startlingly crooked, held within her grasp under the black cloak that wrapped tightly around her form.

There was no time to revisit all of her old haunts, or even time to thank the Room for all that it had done, nor wander the halls within the throes of nostalgia.

No; she was here for one reason and one reason only, and the Astronomy tower was so very far away.

Bellatrix was at her side the whole way through, her hand a constant sort of comfort and steadfastness that grounded her to this reality. Their bodies brushed up against one another as they moved, sparks of lightning jumping between their skin and clothes to light up the prevailing darkness. Their Consort Bond was fresh and still only just settling in, their magic creeping outwards to bring them protection and togetherness, their minds alight with sights seen from two sets of eyes.

They moved as swift as shadows through the corridors of the nearly silent castle, hands on dipping beneath rough cotton and wool as they moved upwards and onwards to their destination. Eventually managed to arrive with swift and sure footing that belied the nervousness that had them both jittery with energy, their wands out and black sparks dripping off the ends to eat away at what meager light there was.

Their quarry arrived in a brilliant flash of light, the only location in all the school that they could enter in this manner, and within seconds of their arrival the deed was done.

The greatest wizard that had ever lived, felled by her wand with no more than a pitiful whimper of surprise.

The Boy Who Lived, taken captive by a killer that carried portions of his blood.

The world turned onwards after their victory, the Dark Lord rising above them all, and Hermione could hardly help herself from smiling at the serenity of it all.

She was safe; just as much as she could ever be.

She had rules; the only two that would ever matter.

And she had Bellatrix; the only witch she would ever need.

**Author's Note:**

> Like Bellamione? https://discord.gg/pcfMU4F come on in and join the server!


End file.
